Celeron M... How sucky?

[pioneercrazed]

I'm seriously looking into getting a laptop. All the good prices have just the Celeron M. Do these new Celerons perform quite a bit better than there older counterparts who just had 128 cache l2. These new ones seem to have a 1mb. I kind of don;t see the point of getting a high end processor unless there is a good video card, which are very expensive and I won;'t be getting anyway.

Basically I like to have winamp open writing a word document with firefox open with a few tabs and not have the pc hiccup at all.

If I pair up a Celeron M with a gig of ram on a notebook would that suffice for my needs, or pay up for a Pentium M?

Thanks

 

[dexvx]

Look at the budget notebook roundup from AT.

Celeron-M 1.4/1MB > Mobile Sempron64 2800+1.6/256K in almost all benchmarks.

 

[Ayah]

Originally posted by: pioneercrazed
I'm seriously looking into getting a laptop. All the good prices have just the Celeron M. Do these new Celerons perform quite a bit better than there older counterparts who just had 128 cache l2. These new ones seem to have a 1mb. I kind of don;t see the point of getting a high end processor unless there is a good video card, which are very expensive and I won;'t be getting anyway.

Basically I like to have winamp open writing a word document with firefox open with a few tabs and not have the pc hiccup at all.

If I pair up a Celeron M with a gig of ram on a notebook would that suffice for my needs, or pay up for a Pentium M?

Thanks

celery m lacks energy savings so it sucks up battery life

 

[dexvx]

Originally posted by: Ayah

celery m lacks energy savings so it sucks up battery life

Common myth about battery life. Look at the AT Budget Notebook review. It still matches or does better than the Mobile Sempron64 2800+ in which it can handily beat in benchmarks.

 

[stevty2889]

Originally posted by: dexvx

Originally posted by: Ayah

celery m lacks energy savings so it sucks up battery life

Common myth about battery life. Look at the AT Budget Notebook review. It still matches or does better than the Mobile Sempron64 2800+ in which it can handily beat in benchmarks.

None the less, it does lack all of the power savings features the pentium-m has. Performance wise, the celeron-m's are good, they are pretty much right on par with the same speed pentium-m, they just don't have speedstep, or the other power savings features.

 

[pioneercrazed]

This is good news, I guess I was a little afraid the celery would be flat out trash... Anyone know if in the future if I decide to swap out the cpu for a pentium-m, would that be a do-able? For reference this is the notebook I'm thinking about and sticking a gig of ram in...

http://www.compusa.com/products/product...en=froogle&cm_cat=&cm_pla=&cm_ite=feed

For power, from the reviews it looks like it gets between 2-3 hours, I don't think I should need any longer.

 

[coldpower27]

Well your talking about Celerons on the mobile arena, from what I remember The northwodo Celerons on the mobile side stuck with 256KB of LV2 cache.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: pioneercrazed
This is good news, I guess I was a little afraid the celery would be flat out trash... Anyone know if in the future if I decide to swap out the cpu for a pentium-m, would that be a do-able? For reference this is the notebook I'm thinking about and sticking a gig of ram in...

http://www.compusa.com/products/product...en=froogle&cm_cat=&cm_pla=&cm_ite=feed

For power, from the reviews it looks like it gets between 2-3 hours, I don't think I should need any longer.

I think you can swap a 400fsb Banias in there, but a Dothan might not be doable.
Celeron M is a Banias without the power saving features, more or less.

Let me draw your attention to what I saw in your link:

"Please Note: This is a clearance item. This product is sold as is and cannot be returned. See product warranty for details. For more details, click here. This item is only available for purchase online."

Just wanted to make sure you saw this.

 

[pioneercrazed]

Ya, I noticed that... Actually I'm actually thinking of buying it used in the for sale forum here, guy says just removed from box to see if it works. Around 500 shipped... Only thing I don't really like about it is there is no 5-in-1 media reader

 

[coldpower27]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003

Originally posted by: pioneercrazed
This is good news, I guess I was a little afraid the celery would be flat out trash... Anyone know if in the future if I decide to swap out the cpu for a pentium-m, would that be a do-able? For reference this is the notebook I'm thinking about and sticking a gig of ram in...

http://www.compusa.com/products/product...en=froogle&cm_cat=&cm_pla=&cm_ite=feed

For power, from the reviews it looks like it gets between 2-3 hours, I don't think I should need any longer.

I think you can swap a 400fsb Banias in there, but a Dothan might not be doable.
Celeron M is a Banias without the power saving features, more or less.

Let me draw your attention to what I saw in your link:

"Please Note: This is a clearance item. This product is sold as is and cannot be returned. See product warranty for details. For more details, click here. This item is only available for purchase online."

Just wanted to make sure you saw this.

Depending on the series yes, Celeron M's have derivatives based on Banias, Dothan and Yonah.

 

[imported_inspire]

I have a Celeron M 380 laptop. I have an 8 cell battery. It's a Toshiba and I've never gotten more than an hour and fifteen minuts on a full charge with all the power saving settings on. It works fine for the mundane things, but games with any graphics are virtually unplayable. Any CPU intensive tasks (data analysis, video encoding, etc.) are also a strain.

I knew they would be, though, when I got a Celeron M - my only beef - and it's a big one - is the battery life. You can't even watch a DVD or takes notes through a class on it without having to plug it in. Go for Centrino or Turion - or you may be kicking yourself for a long time - just like me.

 

[Zap]

Here's the dope:

Intel 910GML Express - limit of 400MHz FSB

CPU is Celeron M with 1MB cache meaning it's based on Dothan. The Celeron M based on Banias are 512k cache. Basically Dothan = 90nm and Banias = 130nm. Banias cache = 1MB Pentium M and 512k Celeron M. Dothan cache = 2MB Pentium M and 1MB Celeron M. This notebook supports Dothan, but with the limitation of no 533MHz FSB support. Most Dothan Pentium M are 533MHz FSB, but some are available as 400MHz FSB (seems more rare).

IMO you really need power savings if you are serious about getting more than 2 hours battery life. Even if this notebook can get more than that when new, batteries degrade over time and in a year it may likely have noticeably less battery life.

Performance wise Dothan Celeron M is right up there with Banias Pentium M and a hair behind Dothan Pentium M.

All this is IMO, YMMV, all rights reserved, all similarities to real CPUs either operational or dead is purely coincidental.

 

[Accord99]

Originally posted by: inspire
I have a Celeron M 380 laptop. I have an 8 cell battery. It's a Toshiba and I've never gotten more than an hour and fifteen minuts on a full charge with all the power saving settings on. It works fine for the mundane things, but games with any graphics are virtually unplayable. Any CPU intensive tasks (data analysis, video encoding, etc.) are also a strain.

There must be something else wrong, most likely the battery. An 8 cell battery draining in 75 minutes means a average power consumption of around 50W. A low-end Celeron-M notebook shouldn't even use 30W total at full-load.

 

[River Side]

Celeron M's are just Pentium M's without the cache.. and still they are very powerful..

My only gripe with my notebook is battery life..it sucks.. can't get more than an hour and a half out of it.. so if there was just ONE thing and only ONE thing I could change about Celerons .. it would be add speedstep.. but hey.. that'll make it a Pentium M.. so i'll stop complaining.. cuz otherwise it's just fine and dandy and not at all sucky..

 

[dexvx]

You guys must have crappy laptops.

A friend's Celeron-M system can do 2+ hours of DVD playback and up to 5 hours on wifi browsing/general office.

 

[imported_inspire]

Originally posted by: Accord99

Originally posted by: inspire
I have a Celeron M 380 laptop. I have an 8 cell battery. It's a Toshiba and I've never gotten more than an hour and fifteen minuts on a full charge with all the power saving settings on. It works fine for the mundane things, but games with any graphics are virtually unplayable. Any CPU intensive tasks (data analysis, video encoding, etc.) are also a strain.

There must be something else wrong, most likely the battery. An 8 cell battery draining in 75 minutes means a average power consumption of around 50W. A low-end Celeron-M notebook shouldn't even use 30W total at full-load.

Maybe I'll call Toshiba...

 

[pioneercrazed]

Well I broke down and bought a brand new dell.. the deal was just too good to pass up; atleast I think... How'd I do?

Item Description Unit Price Quantity Total Price
E1505 Dual Core
Intel® Core? Duo Proc T2050 (1.60GHz/533MHz/2 X 1MB L2 Cache), Genuine Windows® XP Home $938.00 1 $938.00
Inspiron E1505 Intel® Core? Duo Proc T2050 (1.60GHz/533MHz/2 X 1MB L2 Cache)
LCD Panel FREE! 15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA Display with TrueLife?
Memory FREE 1GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz, 2 Dimm
Video Card 128MB ATI MOBILITY? RADEON® X1300 HyperMemory?
Hard Drive 60GB 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive
Operating System (Office software not included) Genuine Windows® XP Home
Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem
Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 6.0
Combo/DVD+RW Drives 8X CD/DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability

Sound Options Integrated Audio

Wireless Networking Cards Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 Internal Wireless
Office Productivity Software (Pre-Installed) No productivity suite- Corel WordPerfect word processor only

Anti-Virus/Security Suite (Pre-installed) No Security Subscription

Primary Battery 53 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery

Hardware Warranty 1Yr Ltd Warranty, 1Yr Mail-In Service, and 1Yr HW Warranty Support

Future Operating Systems Windows Vista? Capable
Operating System Re-Installation CD PC Restore recovery system by Symantec

Dell Digital Entertainment Starter Entertainment Pack - Basic digital Music, Photo and Game experience




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[dexvx]

If you want better battery life, just go with the GMA950.

X1300 Hypermemory sucks. It basically has 16MB (or so) physical memory and uses 128MB of main memory to do whatever. Although it is a improvement to the GMA950, have extremely low expectations for its model number (X1300 you'd think would be better than X800, but nooo).

 

[pioneercrazed]

That was one thing I was contemplating over, but it was basically a free upgrade because that pushed the price over 700 which increased my discount from 10% to 15%. Now I kind of wish I just got a faster hdd. One reason I got the x1300 is because I don't think it;s integrated so down the road I might be able to stick a x1800 in there or something. Maybe not though, but thats why I've got my desktop with an X850XT, lol. Ya, the X1300 is basically just like the x300, pretty crappy but it can't be worse than GMA950.

I'm going to check out my dell account and see if I can change anything out since I only ordered it around noon.

 

[dexvx]

Doesnt matter, your laptop will STILL have a GMA950 in it.

I believe all new Dell laptop video cards use the MXM form factor, so you just have to pull the X1300 out and upgrade.

 

[pioneercrazed]

Ok, gotcha... But do you know if I don't get the ATi if they will still use a motherboard with a pci-x slot on it?

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: pioneercrazed
Well I broke down and bought a brand new dell.. the deal was just too good to pass up; atleast I think... How'd I do?

Pretty good for the price. Couple of months ago I got an Acer Aspire notebook for $1100 shipped that's really similar except x1600 video and 120GB SATA as the major differences. Minor differences include (arguably) better LCD panel, 1.3MP web cam, better battery (that Dell charges $99 extra or so), multi card reader. For wireless use the battery you got... really sucks, but that's standard Dell to offer lowball parts where they can get away with it. At least you got a 1 year warranty. Last Dell I got (similar but with X300 video and Pentium M) had only a 90 day warranty.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: dexvx
You guys must have crappy laptops.

A friend's Celeron-M system can do 2+ hours of DVD playback and up to 5 hours on wifi browsing/general office.

Yeah, my brother in law has a Dell lappy with 15" screen and a Celeron M. He gets well over two hours writing reports and such. I would investigate battery integrity at this point. When cells go bad, battery still works but playtime gets significantly shorter.

 

[Ionizer86]

I had a Thinkpad R50e with a Celeron M 360 inside (Dothan 1.4). Battery life was about 3:00 to 3:15. I swapped it for a Pentium M 715 (Dothan 1.5) and undervolted. Battery life was then 4:00 to 4:30.

The performance is fast enough. A Celeron M 3x0 would perform near identically to an equal clocked Pentium M. Having 1MB cache vs. 2MB cache makes minimal difference.

 

[rogue1979]

In spite of the decreased battery life due to lack of power saving features, the Celeron M has one very nice advantage.

If you have the right kind of chipset, you can use the "wire hoop" trick to overclock it to a 533MHz fsb.

My Dell is running a Celeron M 1.4@ 1866MHz without issues. It makes a noticable difference, but I think that is largely in part to the increase from a 400MHz fsb to the 533MHz fsb. I suspect the memory is now running faster also.